Repetition
by whiskeyandnight
Summary: History has a strange habit of repeating itself.


She waits outside of the door for far too long in an effort to gain her courage. _Moriarty's Saloon_ , the sign proclaims in large white-painted letters. The people she'd spoken with had led her here, at the peak of the town, to seek out the bar owner – Colin Moriarty, the bar's namesake.

She remembers the warnings that Lucas Simms had given her and the way the people seemed to act with caution regarding Moriarty, and she wonders yet again just what kind of man he will be. Uncertainty bubbles forth and makes her heart pound, but she quashes it down as fast as she can manage.

Her hands clench around the railing behind her and she leans against it without putting too much strain on the somewhat flexible material. She doesn't trust the strength of it; she isn't used to structures like the ones that make up the settlement of Megaton.

She isn't used to _any_ of this, really. It's all so unnervingly new and bizarre to her.

Finally, before _far too long_ can grow and become _obscenely too long_ , she steps forward with a deep, sharp breath and opens the door.

* * *

 _James reads the sign one, two, three times as he collects his scrambled thoughts. He's still very shaken up by everything that's happened, but he's trying to be strong amidst the rubble of his collapsed life._

 _Nearly collapsed, anyway._

 _He turns his attention down to the bundle he's cradling ever so gently in the warm cocoon of his arms. His slumbering child, blissfully unaware of everything that's happened around her, needs her father to love her, and protect her, and care for her. James can't do any of that if he isn't strong._

 _He's trying so very hard to be strong._

 _He idly picks at the loose threads of the soft blanket that swaddles his baby, stalling for time in an effort to make the recurring ache in his heart go away before he has to interact with anyone. Next to him, Cross knows better and she clears her throat, and then when that doesn't pull his attention away from his child, she lays a hand on his shoulder. He looks up at her, and she merely gestures to the door of the saloon._

 _Shifting his bundle securely to the crook of one arm, James sucks in a breath – and with it, his courage – and grabs the handle of the door._

* * *

"My god... It's you. Little baby Lily, all grown up." Moriarty laughs heartily. She can only frown at him. She doesn't know how he already knows her name, because this is the first time she's _ever_ met this accented man. "Persistent little flower, ain't ya? Then and now, it would seem. It's been a long time, kid."

She simply blinks owlishly at him, utterly taken aback at the familiarity that colors his words. Words that make no sense, and she's almost willing to pass the man's strange knowledge of her off as a simple case of mistaken identity – but she can't, because _he knows her name_. Moriarty either doesn't notice her surprise, or makes no effort to address it.

"Oh, your daddy passed through here, all right. Here and gone. Got what he came for, and then left. I'm assuming you'll do the same, correct?"

He gives her an expectant look as he rubs down a glass with a dirty, torn rag, like this encounter is something he knew would happen. A few jumbled, nonsensical sounds manage to slip past her lips, but nothing more as she attempts to kick her brain back into gear and process what he's just implied.

"I was born in Vault 101…," is all she can manage to sputter out lamely in the end.

Moriarty only laughs again like she's just told him a bad joke, and she detects no small amount of condescension.

She can only stare dumbly at him, her confused frown never fading from her youthful features.

* * *

" _Who's this, now?" Moriarty asks, peering down at the small face nestled in the blanket James is holding, close and protected. His interest, while polite, is feigned. He's never been fond of babies; too much crying, and they can just be so_ needy _. Too much work, not enough payoff – Colin Moriarty will never have a child (that he knows about, at least)._

" _This is Lilith," James replies softly. His attempts at keeping quiet in an effort to not disturb her are in vain; the child feels and hears the deep rumbling of his voice from where she's pressed securely to his chest, and she opens her wide eyes for a moment before scrunching up her face in protest to the lighting of the bar. She jerkily manages to wriggle an arm from underneath the blanket and waves a tiny fist towards her face as she yawns. James makes soft, wordless cooing noises to her and gently pulls her hand back down and tucks it back under the blanket before she can scratch herself._

" _Tiny thing," Moriarty comments, for lack of anything better to say._

" _She was born a week ago." James' tone is filled with a hint of warmth and a handful of reverence, and he lets the tip of his finger trail gently along the plump roundness of the baby's soft cheek. Her eyes have slipped shut once more._

" _Ah." Moriarty isn't sure what he should do with this information. It means nothing to him, really, but he decides to save it for his records later that night, anyway. He spares a glance to the Brotherhood of Steel woman who keeps a diligent watch over James and the baby from the corner of the room, decidedly kept out of the way while remaining close enough to step in if James needs her to. "I don't suppose she's…?"_

" _No." The lone word cuts him off sharp, hard, and absolute, though James hasn't looked up from his baby's face. His face seems to harden over, turning to stone in that very moment, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes and Moriarty thinks he understands. He's seen plenty of fathers in his lifetime as a bar owner – he knows that look of loss. He feels himself soften at the revelation, and thinks about something to say that won't be absolutely terrible._

" _I'm looking to gain access to Vault 101," James says suddenly, saving him the effort of conjuring up words of false comfort._

 _Moriarty blinks, surprised by the very different path this conversation has taken, and then laughs as though he's heard a joke – because surely, this man has_ got _to be joking._

 _His laughter dies down awkwardly when James' stony expression does not shift._

* * *

"You look like you could use a drink, kid."

Moriarty raises a suggestive brow at her as he continues to clean his glasses, watching her where she sits at the far end of the bar with her head in her hands and looking so very lost. Her short, black hair is beginning to become disheveled, her green eyes dull and weary, her light skin smudged with dirt and grease, and her brightly colored Vault suit showing some real wear and tear. Her world has become turned upside down, and her appearance is already beginning to reflect that.

She huffs out an emotionless laugh and rubs at her sore, reddened eyes. Between the panic of escaping the Vault, being forcefully immersed into this new, foreign environment, and the knowledge that she has to travel to the ruins of D.C. to find her father after nineteen years of always having him there to guide her, she feels almost dead, inside and out. The strain and the stress experienced just in this one day is more than she's _ever_ had to deal with, and she's ill-equipped to learn how to deal with it now.

She can count the number of times she's had alcohol in her life on one hand, but she remembers the late nights, when she was little and he thought she was asleep, when she would watch from behind the metal doorframe of her bedroom as her father drank while poring over his notes, reading a book, or simply staring into nothingness. She remembers seeing a different man, a sadder man, very different from the one that would indulge her in her games and read her bedtime stories and shower her with affection. It wasn't until she was older that she understood that those late nights, without her, were spent coping in a different manner.

"Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I could."

"You'll have to pay, of course."

She lets out a snort.

"Of course," she agrees sardonically. She reaches into her canvas bag – her father's, although she doesn't know where he got it – that she'd thankfully had the thought to cram as full as she could with what little possessions they'd had and take with her in her hurry to evade the Vault's security. She had been able to pawn a few things to a caravan she'd found outside of Megaton, quickly learning about how bottle caps are used as currency and managing to earn herself a few hundred. They suck to carry around, with how much they jingle around in her bag, and she adds _bottle cap storage_ to her mental list of things to do.

"Pick your poison, little flower," Moriarty says, watching her with amusement as she struggles to sort the caps out from whatever other junk she has in the bag – and he recognizes that bag, yes he does, even after nearly twenty years.

She winces at the nickname, like he's just spit in her face, but she only mumbles, "Um. Scotch."

She throws her counted caps onto the bar, which are scooped up and collected by an ever-silent Gob. Moriarty is too busy grabbing her drink to notice when Gob sets aside a few of the caps she'd given him, putting a finger to his lips with a small apologetic smile. She remembers, earlier that day, when her kindness to the disfigured man – _ghoul_ , her mind supplies – had earned her a small, secret discount.

She gives him a grateful smile in return.

* * *

" _Would you like a drink?"_

 _Aside from the damn_ free room _for the night, it's the least that Moriarty can offer the somber man who still sits at the end of the bar. He's not entirely sure why he's feeling so_ generous _today, and he can't help but be a little impressed. Intentional or not, James seems to know how to play his cards, earning himself valuable_ freebies _that Moriarty would otherwise_ never _consider granting._

 _It's an odd day, he decides._

 _There are more people in his bar tonight, more than there usually are. He suspects it_ may _have something to do with the arrival of a scientist and a baby, escorted by an imposing Brotherhood of Steel soldier. It's probably the most exciting thing the townspeople have seen in a long time, but as long as it draws the caps to his business, he doesn't particularly care._

 _He chalks his generosity up as a way to exploit this situation and bring customers in, and settles for that._

 _James spares a glance to his baby, still held securely in his arms as he holds a bottle to her hungry mouth. No matter how much the surrounding people plead, he continues to politely refuse to let anyone else hold his child. Instead, they settle for hovering over his shoulder, cooing and giggling and making silly faces whenever the baby peers up at them with her large, curious eyes. Every now and then, her tiny hands flail and reach for them, who are nothing more than vague shapes in her newborn vision, but that only makes them adore her more._

 _When James considers the week he's just had – losing Catherine, deciding to leave Project Purity, the horrible arguing with Madison, and making the trek to Megaton with an infant – he decides that yes, he would absolutely_ love _a drink._

" _Please," he tells Moriarty as he sets down the bottle for a moment. The baby gives a small whine at the loss, but thankfully she doesn't cry._

" _What'll it be?"_

" _Scotch, please." He shifts the baby around so that he can reach into the canvas bag that sits on the bar in front of him – which mainly holds essentials for his child, plus a few keepsakes – for some caps. Moriarty waves a dismissive hand at him_

" _No, no, put that away," Moriarty insists, decisively pushing away the caps that James slides over the counter. It's the first time he's_ ever _pushed away caps, but the man has clearly been through enough hell already – becoming a father is bad enough, at least in Moriarty's opinion. "This one's on the house."_

 _James mumbles his sincere thanks as a glass is set down on the bar in front of him with a solid_ thud _. Cross orders something as well, but she doesn't presume free drinks for herself and pays without comment._

 _Moriarty then raises his own glass and prompts any drinking patrons to do the same, turning on his charm to give a performance._

" _And now a toast," he announces. "To James and his cheery cherub, Lily. May your future be safe, bright, and boring as hell."_

 _There's a chorus of cheers, some from those that are engrossed in the presence of the baby and some from those that are just happy to be drinking. James taps his glass to Cross' with a small_ clink _that draws a rather loud sound from Lilith, which raises another chorus of laughter and cheers. The warmth of the environment helps to ease James' troubled mind, just a little bit, as he takes a sip from his drink._ _He won't have more than a glass, not while he's looking after his newborn child, but he appreciates Moriarty's gesture and good wishes._

 _He looks down to Lilith's chubby face and gives her the smallest of assuring smiles as he picks up her bottle again to resume her feeding._

* * *

It's far too late in the night – or far too early in the morning – and all she can do is toss and turn. Sleep had always been hard for her to achieve, even down in the Vault, and the bed in one of Moriarty's rooms after a day of pure hell is no exception. She desperately wills herself to just _sleep,_ almost in tears because she can feel her exhaustion weighing on her like a stone, but it is a near impossibility.

Already she can feel the aches and pains of the day settling in, soreness at a level that is entirely new to her, permeating down into her very bones. The Vault is very different from the outside, and she has quickly learned just how fast she'll need to toughen herself up if she's ever going to have a shot at finding her father.

She desperately hopes that she _will_ find him. She doesn't know what she'll do otherwise.

She turns over onto her side in another useless attempt at getting more comfortable on the old, lumpy mattress. Instead, against her will, she gets the opening of the floodgates.

The weight of the past, present, and future bores down on her all at once, so suddenly after a day that's been fueled by nothing more than adrenaline and _fear_. The drinks she'd had down at the bar had only served to dull her reaction for so long; she is left with no more defenses against the reality of her situation.

She weeps, and once she starts, there is little she can do to stop it. It starts slowly and suddenly, and then sweeps her away with the force of her shock. She cries and huffs and makes pitiful little whimpering sounds, and it's only when she shakes with her lack of control and finds herself unable to breathe that she realizes she might be having a panic attack. She curls in on herself and clutches tightly around her knees, tries to calm down and take deep, shuddering breaths, but they don't count for much when her body just won't listen to her.

She breaks down completely, and she has no one to comfort her.

* * *

 _James is tired – God, is he tired – but he can't make himself sleep. The worn mattress in one of Moriarty's rooms – given to him for the night without charge, another point of gratitude to the older Irishman – creaks with every fidget and turn he makes._

 _His mind is racing as he thinks again about what he's about to do. Tomorrow morning he will take his baby and climb to the massive door of Vault 101 to plead with the Overseer to take them in. Though not dangerous in any way, he faces the same possible fate that many others have experienced when dealing with the reclusive people of Vault 101: rejection._

 _He desperately hopes that the Overseer will accept them. He doesn't know what he'll do otherwise._

 _Lilith gurgles from the crib next to his bed, which some of the townsfolk had graciously provided him with and helped him bring up to his temporary room. He turns around onto his side and watches her through the chipped bars as she mindlessly jerks and flails her little limbs about, oblivious to her control over them._

 _If he can't sleep, he's happy to watch over his dear child, the wonderful little life that he helped to create._

 _He doesn't realize that he's actually managed to doze off until his eyes snap open again, as he hears the first sounds of a crying fit rising from the crib. James is up fast and cradling her faster, gently rubbing his stubbled cheek against the soft, wispy dark hairs on her head as he shushes her and hums to her._

" _Shh..." He sits down on the bed with her head held against his chest, where she can hear his heartbeat, solid and steady. He rubs her small back in gentle, rhythmic circles. "You're safe now. No more monsters. No more nightmares. Shh... That's it. Daddy's got you."_

 _Eventually her crying fades to small snuffles and whimpers, but she calms against him, contented to listen to the vibrations of his voice as he talks aimlessly to her and sings to her. He's had a hell of a week, but he's once finds himself calming just by being able to hold his and Catherine's child and gentle her back to sleep._

 _He has Lilith to comfort him, just as she will always have James to comfort her._

* * *

When she's finally managed to calm her panic and regain control over herself, she's left with a dull, pounding headache, puffy eyes, and an unexpected sense of drive and purpose overlaying the stark emptiness that she feels.

She lies in the cheap old bed, staring at the ceiling made of various mismatched sheets of metal, and begins to mentally prepare herself. What she hopes to do will require a great amount of skill, strength, and tactic, the likes of which she _never_ needed in the Vault, not even when she was MVP of her little league team. This isn't _anything_ like the games they'd play as children within the safety of the Vault; this is _real life_ , a do-or-die situation, and she needs to kick herself into gear in order to survive.

She reflects back on her childhood, for a moment, and realizes that some of the things her dad had taught to her were seen as outlandish by the other children because they _were_ outlandish. The lessons that stand out the most to her are all the years he spent teaching her how to shoot with the BB rifle, letting her hone her skill with the gun until she came to be a crack shot, something that was wholly unnecessary while living down in the Vault unless you were a security officer, which they both knew she would never be. She wonders if the things he taught her, things that were never taught in the Vault's school, were accidental in their own ways, since he clearly never intended for her to have to live and survive in the wasteland.

And that just reminds her of how angry she is with him for making her believe she had been born in the Vault, and angrier still for _leaving her_ in the Vault. She understands her father's intentions; he did everything he did because he loved her then and loves her now, and she truly believes that he just did what he thought, at the time, was best for her. She just can't get over the fact that he ever thought she could live in that Vault alone without him, wondering for the rest of her life what happened to her only family.

In all her life, though, she has never questioned the fact that her father loves her more than anything in the world, and because of that she's willing to forgive him in time.

Love and forgiveness combined give her strength in the wake of her misery, and she holds onto that strength with an iron-clad grip. Strength is the most vital part of her growth while facing the cruel and unforgiving wasteland. Strength will eventually lead her back to her father, and set things right again.

She will do anything to find him. Even if it kills her.

* * *

 _With Lilith fast asleep in her crib once more, James returns to bed. His everything hurts – head, eyes, legs, arms, and most of all, his heart. His heart is still horribly wounded, not even remotely close to healing itself after the loss of the love of his life. He doesn't know if it ever will be able to be fully whole again._

 _What he_ does _know, as he lies in bed with his hands covering his eyes, is that he has to prepare himself for a new life, underground. Living in the Vault will be very different for him, if he's able to gain entrance, and he's not entirely thrilled about it, to say the least. Down there, there is no Purity, there are no sunrises and sunsets, and there is no going back. But down there, Lilith will be safe; the one last shred of Catherine's existence in this world will be safe, with him. Forever._

 _That constant reminder is what drives him forward into his underground future. His baby's cries, her sounds, her eyes, her_ everything _is what has kept him from succumbing to the darkest corners of his mind. While he's angry about Catherine's death and his inability to do anything about it, he's thankful for the gift that she has left him with. Their child is his strength, his anchor, his everything, and he will not let it all slip so easily from his fingers._

 _So while retreating to the Vault is far from ideal, he thinks it's the safest option he has left. That thought is what will help him talk with the Overseer, and will ultimately help him get through the rest of his life, no matter how much he dislikes the environment. Lilith will be able to live a full, safe life in the Vault and he'll be able to watch, and he wants that more than anything right now. Even Purity._

 _He will do anything to protect her. Even if it kills him._


End file.
